Gary McAllister, Chairman of the Amalgamation of Official Northern Ireland Supporters Clubs tells their story:
‘Our organisation was formed in 1998. We came together as a network of individual supporters clubs. Not long after our formation, as things were changing politically in Northern Ireland, we had a conversation with the Irish FA, who were very concerned about the impact of sectarian singing and inappropriate chanting at international matches at Windsor Park. After a discussion among our members, we agreed that it was time, and appropriate for us as a fans group, to help to set the example and try to lead to bring about change.
One of the initiatives was a community ticketing scheme where each member of our clubs was given 20 tickets to distribute, to encourage young people to come along. Many of those young people, who went to those games, have since told us that this was their first experience of supporting Northern Ireland and they've gone on to become lifelong fans.
We also organised singing sections, where a thousand fans sat together and sang an alternative song, if anyone attempted to sing songs that were sectarian or inappropriate. Fans began to create the lyrics to their own alternative songs, probably most famously, ‘We're not Brazil, we’re Northern Ireland’ and it just grew from there.
I would argue that the vast majority of Northern Ireland fans never agreed with sectarian behaviour. When we listen back to old games you don't find the whole of a stadium singing sectarian songs. It was always a minority of people but in those days we had a different society and it was a lot easier as things changed to encourage people to change their behaviours.
I think football plays a very significant role in bringing people together in Northern Ireland.
There are international Games where people can come along and support the team and we have always said we don't apply labels. What we say is, if you come to the match you're a Northern Ireland fan. First and foremost you support the team, and it doesn't matter who you are, what you are, where you come from or what your job is. You come along and you're just being a Northern Ireland supporter. Any political or religious views, you leave them outside the stadium.
Football can also play an important role in educating young people around things like mental health, alcohol and substance abuse. Football is sometimes described as a hook, which gives an opportunity to engage with people, particularly younger people, who may not get involved with those sorts of educational programmes.
I think football and sport have a huge role to play in grassroots communities. I come from Woodvale in North Belfast and it’s an area of significant deprivation and I have seen what you can do when you engage young people with football. I think it’s important that the government, IFA and all the key stakeholders continue to provide adequate funding and support for people who work in grassroot communities to deliver programmes that give young people an alternative, like diversionary activities during the summer months. Many of those things are led by volunteers who give a lot of goodwill and time. It's important that those people feel valued and don't mind giving up their time.
I think the two most important things are capacity building and funding. I think it's important that the government works with voluntary groups to try and make it easier to access funding. I think mentoring and educating people will give them the tools and knowledge to allow them to do more. The willingness is really there, so I think if we can find a way of harnessing this enthusiasm, identifying the right people, and giving them all the support we can, that might enable them to go on and secure and manage funding to do so much more in their communities.
Padraig Coyle, founder of the Belfast Celtic Museum and Michael Boyd, founder Director for Football for All, share their story of reconciliation through sport:
Padraig begins,
‘The story of the Belfast Celtic Museum goes back 15 or 20 years when the Belfast Celtic Society was formed off the back of a book that I had written about the history of the club, how it came to be and how it fell apart in 1949.
The Park Centre, where the museum is located, is where the club was based, but there was very little to mark the fact that, in its day, it was one of the top football grounds in Ireland, Britain and Europe. So, we set about opening a museum and we were delighted with the response we got from people coming to look around the exhibits.’
Michael explains:
‘I started working as a Community Relations Officer at the Irish FA in February 2000. The Sports Council and the Community Relations Council had put pressure on the Irish FA to address the issue of sectarianism and it really came to a head when Norther Ireland was playing France in 1999. France were world champions at the time but they couldn't sell out Windsor Park and unfortunately there were problems with sectarianism and racism at the match. As a result, the Sports Minister put pressure on the Irish FA, the Sports Council and the Community Relations Council to come up with some funding to address the issue. They created a Community Relations Officer role and I applied because I thought it might be a good experience to go for the interview, but I got the job and started in February 2000 on a 12 month contract. Over the next 13 years, I went on a journey of securing more money, growing the community team and developing the Football for All campaign, and as part of the campaign I met Padraig.’
Padraig continues:
‘In 1949, Belfast Celtic left the Irish League under controversial circumstances, because of an incident where one of their players, Jimmy Jones, was attacked by a section of Linfield support at the end of the game on Boxing Day 1948. There was little or no punishment to Linfield for what had happened on their ground. There had been a lot of tension between the Irish FA and Belfast Celtic down the seasons, but this incident drove a huge wedge between the club and the association. In fact the two were never together again until we got together.
We had started the Belfast Celtic Society and there was great suspicion about anything that the Irish FA might be doing in regard to sectarianism. People didn't believe that they were trying to resolve matters and change attitudes.
I met with Michael and he heard the story of Belfast Celtic as we understood it, and through our cooperation and interaction we did a huge amount to bring down the walls that were separating the clubs.
We had an event at Windsor Park, introducing the society to Linfield and it was the forerunner to the play I'd written called 'Lish and Gerry at the Shrine'. We felt that night, the Linfield's members realised this was a good idea and we set about having a performance of the play in the old stand, in the old railway end social club. Through the use of drama, we were able to tell the story from the perspective of the two main characters, who were Lish Scott, the Protestant manager of Belfast Celtic and a good friend of his called Gerry Morgan, a devout Catholic, who was the trainer for Linfield and Northern Ireland. The two men had been rivals and friends, both as players and in their roles within their separate clubs.’